1. Field of the Invention
The exemplary embodiment(s) of the present invention is related to a status controller, a computer system, and a status detecting method thereof. More specifically, the exemplary embodiment(s) of the present invention is related to a status controller, a computer system, and a status detecting method thereof which could determine whether the computer system enters the status.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the improvement of the technology, computer systems have become common apparatuses in the daily life. In order to lower the power consumption, computer systems have not only normal active status and shutdown status, but also sleep status. In the sleep status, computer systems would stop operating part of the modules and only keep the necessary modules, and return to the normal active status when being triggered by an external signal. Thus, the energy-saving effect could be achieved.
In the prior arts, a main controller is usually used to inform the embedded controller in the computer system. Two physical circuit pins disposed between the main controller and the embedded controller are used by the embedded controller to check whether the computer system is in active status, shutdown status or sleep status, for example the common V5S_EN pin and the PMIC_PWGD pin are used. The embedded controller uses the PMIC_PWGD pin to check whether the computer system is in the active status or in the shutdown status, and uses the V5S_EN pin to check whether the computer system is in the sleep status. However, by this way the circuit layout inside the computer system has to reserve rooms for these two physical circuit pins, and it causes the manufacturing cost rising and it is also difficult for designing the computer systems nowadays because the designs are required to be thin and light. Besides, the V5S_EN pin has a misjudgment time, and it is possible that the level is changed before the computer system entering the sleep status, and thus the embedded controller would make a misjudgment.
On the other hand, in the prior arts, if the V5S_EN pin was used to determine whether the computer system enters the sleep status, it indicates that the whole hardware modules inside the computer system enter the sleep status. However, INTEL® has proposed a new specification, i.e. S0-i3 status, and when the computer system is in the S0-i3 status, part of the hardware inside the computer system could still be operated normally, such as Bluetooth module, GPS module, audio module, network module, or touch control module. Therefore, the computer system could be flexibly set whether enters the sleep status or not. However, in the prior arts, the hardware V5S_EN pin could not determine precisely whether each module inside the computer system enters the sleep status.
Thus, a status controller, a computer system, and a status detecting method thereof are needed to solve the disadvantages of the prior arts.